France left polls apart by Henry handball

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Raymond Domenech and Nicolas Sarkozy may be happy that France have qualified for next summer’s World Cup finals in South Africa, but the French public disagree.

More than 80 per cent do not believe that France deserve to be in the finals and an even greater number disapprove of the handling offence by Thierry Henry on Wednesday that enabled his side to get there by eliminating Ireland.

An online poll carried out for France 2, the state television channel, revealed that 81 per cent of 1,003 participants said that their team’s qualification was undeserved, while 88 per cent thought that